I just want to go over this Texas thing quick for anyone who hasn't been following the aftermath: I tend to agree with Josh Marshall who feels, in sum, that the Department of Homeland Security itself wasn't responsible for using its powers to track Texas Dems, but the fault can be laid at the feet of a Texas state trooper, who was almost certainly following orders from Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick, who was definitely taking orders from Tom DeLay. So while the system didn't fail as such, it was deinitely abused. Go read some more of Josh's posts about the whole thing--he's especially good in pointing out that the Dems had every right to oppose the gerrymandering, which flies in the face of a century's worth of political custom.

Of course, then today's there's the revelation that the Texas Department of Public Safety destroyed all records of Homeland Security's involvement in the matter, which is just really, really bad, and I hope we can all agree on that. I don't care where you are on the political spectrum--having federal anti-terrorist resources used to track you down when all you're doing is breaking a quorum is not a weapon you want to have pointed at you, to say nothing of the moral reasons. And destroying the evidence just makes it look worse.